A US woman made a very unexpected discovery after sending a DNA sample to genealogy website Ancestry.com.
Kelli Rowlette, 36, received results indicating her biological father was not the man who raised her, but actually now-retired obstetrician gynaecologist Gerald Mortimer.
As the BBC reports, Ms Rowlette has filed a lawsuit alleging the doctor used his own sperm to inseminate her mother during fertility treatment.
Before receiving the shocking test results, Ms Rowlette had no clue that her parents had experienced trouble conceiving and had visited Dr Mortimer in the late 1970s.
Her parents, Sally Ashby and Howard Fowler, had agreed to use a ‘cocktail’ of donor sperm containing 85 percent of Fowler’s “genetic material” and sperm from an anonymous college student donor, CNN reports. The lawsuit alleges Dr Mortimer actually inseminated Ms Ashby with his own genetic material.
The lawsuit, filed in U. S. District Court in Idaho against Mortimer, his wife Linda McKinnon Mortimer and Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates of Idaho Fall, accuses the retired doctor of fraud, medical negligence, battery, emotional distress and breach of contract.
“While the family understands the public’s interest in their story, they ask that their privacy be respected as they focus on the difficult process of healing from this trauma,” family attorney Shea Meehan told CNN via email.
Dr Mortimer could not be reached for comment when contacted by the publication.
